Title: Job Appeals to the Judge.
Text: Job 9.32-14.14
Series: Job: The Mystery of Suffering (Job)
Raymond Maurer, New Life Christian Church, Wixom, MI
www.NewLifeWithGod.com. E-mail me if you would like the Power Point Slides (Ray@NewLifeWithGod.com).
Did you hear about the woman who accidentally glued herself to the floor this week in West Virginia? “Joyce Stewart sat in her robe at the head of her kitchen table as she drank her morning coffee while visiting with relatives. While seated, she lifted her heel up and applied a liquid bandage product to the back of her foot. She didn’t realize that the liquid had also dripped to the bottom of her foot before she relaxed her foot on the floor.
When her grandson came in and asked for pancakes she tried to get up and laughed when she discovered her foot was stuck. All of her relatives were laughing until they could not get her loose. She tried to free herself with a knife, until her foot started to bleed. Paramedics worked with Q-tips and baby oil for more than an hour to get Stewart’s foot free. She was thankful that it happened when company was over. She lives alone and couldn’t imagine the thought of being ‘glued to the floor for days.’
Stewart is expecting a full recovery, but it may take her pride a bit longer to heal. She said, ‘I was embarrassed…I was still in my robe.’ Representatives from 3M have extended an offer to pay for any medical expenses. Although the package states that the product runs easily and sets quickly, it doesn’t warn against gluing your body parts to the floor or anything else”
(Edited from Misty Higgins, The Journal, Martinsburg, WV. 7/21/2004, journal-news.net).
In our sue-happy culture, many immediately think that Joyce Stewart has excellent grounds for a lawsuit. Some would say this company should be held accountable for the products it produces. Job has the exact same mindset. Job has been stuck and his family and friends have been of no help in getting him free. So in our text today he again appeals to God. But this time he takes it a step further, he wants to take God to court.
Thus far in the book of Job we’re seen that God is all-powerful. Satan can only cause suffering that God allows. We tacked a few questions:
• Can I prevent suffering? No, even the righteous suffer.
• How should I respond to suffering? Expect it. Be honest about the pain and live by faith and God’s power.
Worship while you mourn. Maintain your integrity and surround yourself with supportive friends.
• How do I overcome bitterness? Understand how it destroys us; Adjust my expectations; Help others in who are in need; Appeal to God for help
• How do I overcome anger? Accept anger as a normal emotion. Beware of an incomplete perspective. Confess my anger to prevent sin. Put your arms around Jesus
Throughout this series we’re seeing that there is always a Mystery to Suffering. We want answers. When God finally answers Job and his friends, God makes it clear that Job will not understand all of the mysteries of suffering…at least on this side of eternity. Today, Job basically says to God, Tell me why or let me die.
The only place to force someone to speak to you is in court…so Job says, I want to see God in court.
JOB’S REQUEST FOR A HEARING BEFORE GOD
Job says, God and I are not equals; I can’t bring a case against him. We’ll never enter a courtroom as peers. How I wish we had an arbitrator to step in and let me get on with life – To break God’s death grip on me, to free me from this terror so I could breathe again. Then I’d speak up and state my case boldly. As things stand, there is no way I can do it (Job 9.32-35, Message).
“The problem with a legal confrontation with God is that the two parties cannot be on the same level.” God is not a man like Job. Job cannot imagine having an ordinary conversation with God. “What Job needs is an arbitrator” (DA Carson Ed. New Bible Commentary, IVP, 1994).
In the East there were people who helped with this when two people were in a dispute. The “daysman” would “act as umpire” he had “the…authority to set the day when competing parties come together to settle their dispute. In the East, the “daysman” put his hands on the heads of the two disputing parties to remind them that he was the one with the authority to settle the question. Job longed for somebody who could do this for him and God (Warren Wiersbe, Be Patient. Wheaton: Victor Books, 1991, 1996).
But there is no mediator that would stand between God and Job…Jesus would later come and do this for all of us, but Job doesn’t have access to Jesus.
So Job proposes that he would have to make his own case directly to God. Job realizes that God is all-powerful and he is sitting outside the city gate in the trash dump. What else is he to do? His friends certainly aren’t going to represent him before God; they think he’s guilty! But first, Job has a few questions:
WHAT ARE THE CHARGES AGAINST ME?
If he’s going to prepare for a majestic hearing before God he needs to know what he’s being charged with. Why is all this happening? I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me. Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the schemes of the wicked? (Job 10.2-3, NIV).
Job begins by asking God not to condemn him for being so bold. He’s not depressed…when you’re depressed you get stuck and you’re plagued by inaction. Job wants to take action. Job assumes God is charging him; why else is all of this happening to him and the wicked seem to go unpunished. He has no idea that God is not charging him…Satan is. To the contrary, God is counting on him to endure. Job doesn’t know this…this is why he wants to hear from God.
WHAT ARE THE MOTIVES
Job not only needs a list of the charges. He also wants to know the motives. Why is God doing this? 5 Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a man, 6 that you must search out my faults and probe after my sin – 7 though you know that I am not guilty and that no one can rescue me from your hand? (Job 10.5-7, NIV).
Job may not be depressed, but he’s a bit schizophrenic; he speculates that maybe God is like a mortal with only a few days left to live, so he has to dig up some dirt on Job. Then he immediately says God cannot be like that: 8 “Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? 9 Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? 10 Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, 11 clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? 12 You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit (Job 10.8-12, NIV).
What a wonderful and poetic description of God as our personal creator. It reminds me of David’s words in Psalm 139. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well (Psalm 139.13-14, NIV). David and Job seemed to have no doubt that life begins at conception!
But this only adds more questions about God’s motives. Job wonders, if God is my Creator who personally breathed life into me like he did Adam; if God created me with such grace and care, why all of this suffering? As I motioned a few weeks ago: “suffering…is only a problem to the person with faith in a good God. The atheist…has to come to terms with suffering, but for him it is merely a fact…of the world. But the fact that many people perceive suffering to be a problem is itself a witness to the fact that there exists a good God, in whose light the existence of suffering poses us questions (Atkinson, Message of Job. 26).
Job says, 15 If I am guilty – woe to me! Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head, for I am full of shame and drowned in my affliction…17 You bring new witnesses against me and increase your anger toward me; your forces come against me wave upon wave. 18 “Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me. 19 If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave! (Job 10.15, 17-19, NIV).
Tell me why or let me die.
FALSE WITNESSES
We’ve heard from two of Job’s three friends, at this point his third friend Zophar speaks up. What a flood of words! Shouldn’t we put a stop to it? Should this kind of loose talk be permitted? Job, do you think you can carry on like this and we’ll say nothing? That we’ll let you rail and mock and not step in? You claim, ‘My doctrine is sound and my conduct impeccable.’ How I wish God would give you a piece of his mind, tell you what’s what! (Job 11.2-5, The Message).
Zophar thought Job was claiming to be without sin, he never claimed this. Earlier Job asked God, Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? (Job 7.21, NIV). Zophar goes on to show that he’s a heartless man. He later implies that Job is deceitful and evil (11.11) and needs to repent.
Like Job, he wishes that God would speak. But he wants God to speak so Job would get more punishment. He is the least sympathetic of the three friends…he thinks we deserve everything bad that happens to us. When God does speak he wants to destroy Zophar, until Job prays for God to save him.
All three of Job’s friends have now spoken, and all three of them have proven to be unreliable witnesses to one degree or another. It reminds me of a story I read about a court that was in session in a small-town. It was one of those towns were everyone knew each other.
The first witness was called to the stand. Mrs. Jones was a grandmother and very blunt in her speech. The prosecuting attorney approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?" She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I’ve known you since you were a young boy. Frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people, and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a rising big shot when you haven’t the brains to realize you will never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."
The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?" She replied, "Why, yes I do. I’ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. I used to baby-sit him for his parents. And he, too, has been a real disappointment to me. He’s lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. The man can’t build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the shoddiest in the entire state. Yes, I know him."
At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and called both counselors to the bench. In a very quiet voice, he said, "If either of you asks her if she knows me, you’ll be jailed for contempt!" (SC: Dru Ashwell)
She wasn’t a very good witness, and neither are Job’s friends. They failed to help his case. They didn’t even give him support…they only had judgment. They forgot their role. They are not the judge; they are witnesses. God is the judge. It’s no wonder that Job wants to make his case directly to the judge. He is disgusted with his friends. For the first time, he is condescending.
Listen to this sarcasm: I’m sure you speak for all the experts, and when you die there’ll be no one left to tell us how to live. But don’t forget that I also have a brain …I’m ridiculed by my friends: ‘So that’s the man who had conversations with God!’ Ridiculed without mercy: ‘Look at the man who never did wrong!’ It’s easy for the well-to-do to point their fingers in blame, for the well-fixed to pour scorn on the strugglers (Job 12.2-3, 4-5, Message).
JOB’S APPEAL TO THE JUDGE
I’m taking my case straight to God Almighty; I’ve had it with you—I’m going directly to God. You graffiti my life with lies. You’re a bunch of pompous quacks! I wish you’d shut your mouths – silence is your only claim to wisdom. “Listen now while I make my case, consider my side of things for a change. Or are you going to keep on lying ‘to do God a service’? to make up stories ‘to get him off the hook’?... Your lies might convince a jury – but would they convince God? He’d reprimand you on the spot if he detected a bias in your witness (Job 13.3-7, 9-10 Message).
Job is not trying to “win a case against God,” he’s now trying to “settle a disagreement” with his friends. He’s trying to clear his name. But in order to do this “he invites God to accuse him, so that he may hear what God has against him” (DA Carson Ed. New Bible Commentary, IVP, 1994).
Job has complete confidence in God as a fair judge. He says, Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face (Job 13.15, NIV). At the same time he’s at the end of his rope. Can anyone bring charges against me? If so, I will be silent and die (Job 13.19, NIV).
Tell me why or let me die.
There’s a story of two evangelists’ who were on the roadside with a sign that read, "The End is Near! turn around now before it’s too late".
A passing driver yells, "Leave us alone you religious zealots." Then you hear a loud splash. One evangelist said to the other, "Do you think we should have just said ‘Bridge Out’?" (SC: Michael Beach).
Job just wants the truth. His hope in the midst of this search is amazing! He’s discouraged, but he never gives up hope.
COMMUNION
He also longs for a better future. He wonders if life on the other side of death would be any better. He would like to know how many more days he has to endure. He says, Why don’t you just bury me alive, get me out of the way until your anger cools? But don’t leave me there! Set a date when you’ll see me again. If we humans die, will we live again? That’s my question. All through these difficult days I keep hoping, waiting for the final change – for resurrection! (Job 14.13-14, Message).
The people of Job’s day didn’t have a clear picture of eternity like we do. We have the benefit of reading how this life-story ends…and how Jesus’ life never ended…and how our lives can blend into eternal life.
